Monday, August 04, 2008

Books I Plan On Getting

1. The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity The author Russ Roberts was a former student of Milton Friedman and the author of earlier economic novels like the Invisible Heart and the Choice.

2. Stealing from Each Other: How the Welfare State Robs Americans of Money and Spirit. Author Ed Browning is an expert in public finance.

3. The Subprime Solution: How Today's Global Financial Crisis Happened, and What to Do about It. No, this is not simply another I told you so kind of book, it is by Bob Shiller, who wrote the Irrational Exuberance a couple of years back.

4. The Best Book on the Market: How to stop worrying and love the free economy by E Butler.

5. Fixing Global Finance by Martin Wolf, the FT columnist.

6. Morals and Markets: An Evolutionary Account of the Modern World by Dan Friedman.

My friend Ming talked about his disappointment of the annual book fair in Hong Kong here. In general I am in total agreement with him. But this year it is a bit different, I got Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz's A Monetary History of the United States for HK$ 30. And the book is in EXCELLENT CONDITION.

The apparent missing of prestigious mainland publishers is what really upsets me at the bookfairs in recent years.

And also Ming, I do not know you are interested in learning more about economic history, otherwise I would recommend David Lande's Weath and Poverty of Nations, Eric Jones' European Miracle , Ken Pomeranz's the Great Divergence, Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel and Greg Clark's Farewell to Alms.

2 comments:

said...

Thank you for introducing some books on economic history to me. I start reading the one I bought and found it interesting. It is good to know more.

P.S. HK$30 for "A Monetary History of the United States"! How come you didn't call me or help me to get another one?

Kempton said...

Thanks for the link to the Bob Shiller book. It got me to this page,
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8714.html
and I am looking forward to checking out the interview with him.

P.S. HK$30 for "Monetary History" is a great deal indeed, good catch for you.